I chatted with Tony Blair about: - What he learned from Lee Kuan Yew - Intelligence agencies track record on Iraq & Ukraine - What he tells the dozens of world leaders who come seek advice from him - How much of a PM’s time is actually spent governing - What will AI’s July 1914 moment look like from inside the Cabinet? Enjoy! Watch the video on You…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #190 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Eric Schwitzgebel on whether the US is conscious And if you're finding these highlights episodes …

Dr. Andrew M. Bailey Andrew is an interdisciplinary teacher and scholar whose work spans philosophy, politics, and economics. He is a Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College (Singapore), and he is the co-author of the upcoming book "Resistance Money: A Philosophical Case for Bitcoin." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #189 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Rachel Glennerster on how “market shaping” could help solve climate change, pandemics, and other …

Here is my conversation with Francois Chollet and Mike Knoop on the $1 million ARC-AGI Prize they're launching today. I did a bunch of socratic grilling throughout, but Francois’s arguments about why LLMs won’t lead to AGI are very interesting and worth thinking through. It was really fun discussing/debating the cruxes. Enjoy! Watch on YouTube. Lis…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #188 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Matt Clancy on whether science is good And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, …

Chatted with my friend Leopold Aschenbrenner on the trillion dollar nationalized cluster, CCP espionage at AI labs, how unhobblings and scaling can lead to 2027 AGI, dangers of outsourcing clusters to Middle East, leaving OpenAI, and situational awareness. Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the …

Nick Frosst is a computer scientist and musician. He co-founded Cohere, which is a company focused on training large language models and making them available through a network-based API. He was also the first employee of Geoffrey Hinton Google Brain lab in Toronto, where he spent 3 years researching capsule networks, adversarial examples, and expl…

You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/R9VGbY7CgOI Matt, Bella, and Cody sit down with Julian Hazell to discuss the UK recession, religion, higher education, and whether being an amateur swordfighter should give you the right to vote.By The 80000 Hours team

This is a selection of highlights from episode #187 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Zach Weinersmith on how researching his book turned him from a space optimist into a “space basta…

David Shapiro. David is a former engineer who became famous through his dozens of well-received tutorials on Youtube, covering everything from fine-tuning ChatGPT to his proposed solution to the alignment problem. His work focuses on ensuring that advanced technologies are used safely, bringing about an abundant, post-scarcity, post-nihilistic futu…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #186 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Dean Spears on why babies are born small in Uttar Pradesh, and how to save their lives And if you…

Chatted with John Schulman (cofounded OpenAI and led ChatGPT creation) on how posttraining tames the shoggoth, and the nature of the progress to come... Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Pre-t…

After a long career as a software engineer and data scientist, John became an independent researcher in artificial intelligence. Today he focuses on a diverse array of topics, such as the nature of abstraction and what the word "agency" even means. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #185 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Lewis Bollard on the 7 most promising ways to end factory farming, and whether AI is going to be …

This is a selection of highlights from episode #184 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Zvi Mowshowitz on sleeping on sleeper agents, and the biggest AI updates since ChatGPT And if you…

Matt Reardon, Arden Koehler, and Huon Porteous sit down with Dwarkesh Patel to find out how you become a world-famous (among tech intellectuals) podcast host at 23. We also discuss how 80k would have advised 21-year-old Dwarkesh and 80k strategy more broadly. You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/H5px6CQ…

Dr. Gregory Salmieri is a senior scholar of philosophy at the Salem Center, where he holds the Brigham Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism. He is the co-editor of the books "A Companion to Ayn Rand" and "Foundations of a Free Society" and the author of numerous articles on philosophy, with a particular focus on Aristotle and Ayn Rand. Learn mor…

Mark Zuckerberg on: - Llama 3 - open sourcing towards AGI - custom silicon, synthetic data, & energy constraints on scaling - Caesar Augustus, intelligence explosion, bioweapons, $10b models, & much more Enjoy! Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Human edited transcript with helpful links here. Timest…

Dr. Johannes Jaeger is a systems scientist, evolutionary biologist, educator, and natural philosopher with an extremely transdisciplinary track record. His investigations, first as the head of an empirical lab, later as the director of an institute for the philosophy of biology, and then as a freelance investigator, have always focused on organisms…

This is a cross-post of an interview Rob Wiblin did on Robert Wright's Nonzero podcast in January 2024. You can get access to full episodes of that show by subscribing to the Nonzero Newsletter. They talk about Sam Bankman-Fried, virtue ethics, the growing influence of longtermism, what role EA played in the OpenAI board drama, the culture of local…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #183 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Spencer Greenberg on causation without correlation, money and happiness, lightgassing, hype vs va…

Had so much fun chatting with my good friends Trenton Bricken and Sholto Douglas on the podcast. No way to summarize it, except: This is the best context dump out there on how LLMs are trained, what capabilities they're likely to soon have, and what exactly is going on inside them. You would be shocked how much of what I know about this field, I've…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #182 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Bob Fischer on comparing the welfare of humans, chickens, pigs, octopuses, bees, and more And if …

Dr. Anton Howes is a historian of invention. He is currently writing a book on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution, and is official historian for the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, as well as head of innovation research for The Entrepreneurs Network. He is a visiting fellow at King's College Lond…

"We really, really want to make sure that nuclear war never breaks out. But we also know — from all of the examples of the Cold War, all these close calls — that it very well could, as long as there are nuclear weapons in the world. So if it does, we want to have some ways of preventing that from turning into a civilisation-threatening, cataclysmic…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #181 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Laura Deming on the science that could keep us healthy in our 80s and beyond And if you're findin…

You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFEb8ICWJQQ In this episode of our new podcast project, Matt Reardon, Bella Forristal, and Arden Koehler sit down with Joel Becker to find out what’s great about America, what was not so great about FTX, and invite you to port back to the time when Ard…

After graduating with a degree in government from Harvard, Daniel Golliher founded a civics school called Maximum New York, anchored in New York City. The school’s goal is to accelerate kind, smart, ambitious people into city and state politics; provide them with an atypical level of knowledge about how government works; and keep them networked tog…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #180 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Hugo Mercier on why gullibility and misinformation are overrated And if you're finding these high…

Here is my episode with Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind We discuss: * Why scaling is an artform * Adding search, planning, & AlphaZero type training atop LLMs * Making sure rogue nations can't steal weights * The right way to align superhuman AIs and do an intelligence explosion Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any oth…

Dwarkesh Patel is a renowned podcaster who has hosted interviews with luminaries like Marc Andreesen, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Grant Sanderson. He's best known for the extraordinary effort he puts into researching the topics he speaks with his guests about, and for covering an exceptionally wide intellectual ground. Learn more about your ad choices. …

This is a selection of highlights from episode #179 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety And if you're findin…

We discuss: * what it takes to process $1 trillion/year * how to build multi-decade APIs, companies, and relationships * what's next for Stripe (increasing the GDP of the internet is quite an open ended prompt, and the Collison brothers are just getting started). Plus the amazing stuff they're doing at Arc Institute, the financial infrastructure fo…

Matt, Bella, and Cody sit down with Chana Messinger to find out what she does, how to insulate ourselves from harsh realities, and whether pub trivia is complete waste of time. You can find Chana’s long-defunct blog at: https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/ Update February 20, 2024: The 'steelman' bounty has been claimed! You can also find a full vi…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #178 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Emily Oster on what the evidence actually says about pregnancy and parenting And if you're findin…

Taylor Black is a cross-functional team leader and seasoned entrepreneur passionate about driving innovation and growth. As a co-founder of Fizzy Ventures and a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft Incubation Studio, Taylor has been at the forefront of entrepreneurial ecosystems, venture studios, and technology and business model innovation. Than…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #177 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Nathan Labenz on recent AI breakthroughs and navigating the growing rift between AI safety and ac…

It was a great pleasure speaking with Tyler Cowen for the 3rd time. We discussed GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?, especially in the context of how the insights of Hayek, Keynes, Smith, and other great economists help us make sense of AI, growth, animal spirits, prediction markets, alignment, central planning,…

Emery Gunselman is a former astrodynamics engineer and is currently a Satellite Operations Product Owner at Morpheus Space. Morpheus Space is disrupting the NewSpace industry by introducing Agile Constellations, a fusion between cutting-edge electric propulsion and Artificial Intelligence, which enables satellite service providers to operate entire…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #146 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Robert Long on why large language models like GPT (probably) aren’t conscious And if you're findi…

This is a narration of my blog post, Lessons from The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro. You read the full post here: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/lyndon-johnson Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future posts and episodes. Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh…

This is a narration of my blog post, Will scaling work?. You read the full post here: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/will-scaling-work Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future posts and episodes. Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe…

James Pethokoukis is a senior fellow and the DeWitt Wallace Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he analyzes US economic policy, writes and edits the AEIdeas blog, and hosts AEI’s Political Economy podcast. He is also a contributor to CNBC and writes the “Faster, Please!” newsletter on Substack. Mr. Pethokoukis is a 2002 “Jeopard…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #176 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Nathan Labenz on the final push for AGI, understanding OpenAI’s leadership drama, and red-teaming…

I spoke to Pramit Bhattacharya an independent data journalist about India's statistical system. We talked about How did Indian statisticians adapt their statistical methods to account for India's informal sector? How are India's GDP numbers constructed? Why it's so hard to outright manipulate GDP numbers The case for optimism --- Send in a voice me…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #175 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Lucia Coulter on preventing lead poisoning for $1.66 per child And if you're finding these highli…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #174 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Nita Farahany on the neurotechnology already being used to convict criminals and manipulate worke…

I talked with Harry Law of the University of Cambridge and Google DeepMind about AI regulation We talked about Me vs Harry on open source AI regulation Being humble when regulating AI Why a "Manhattan Project for X" is overrated --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pradyumna-sp/message…

Nicholas Smart has 15 years' experience as a professional intelligence and security analyst working for government agencies and private companies, covering political, social, military, economic, information and infrastructure issues, and he has experience working as a compliance officer for a cryptoasset trading desk. At present, he is the director…